


How the Shem Lost His Penis

by taenia



Series: Dalish Myth and Lore [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fairy Tales, Folklore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2719967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taenia/pseuds/taenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love folklore a lot. And I really, really adore dirty folk tales. It was INEVITABLE, when I started writing "Gift of the People" that I would write a naughty Dalish folktale. </p><p>I don't think this really fits into that work ... but I certainly couldn't deprive you of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How the Shem Lost His Penis

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by the Russian story "The Magic Ring"

Look, it wasn’t so long ago as you might think. People are always telling stories about Arlathan and the days of old, saying that there’s no more magic in the world.

Well, maybe there’s none of the old stuff that the elf-lords used to get up to, but their lives aren’t our lives. But our Keepers these days? They do just fine.

So this story I’m going to tell you, it happened, oh, maybe twenty years back. Maybe a little more, who can tell these days? Everything gets so jumbled up, and I was just a boy when I first heard the news. It was a clan over in the Free Marches, who were living on the sea coasts there. They were friendly with the humans, even friendly with the dwarves. Traded game and fish for stone and wood. Maybe an elf-girl even left for the dwarf clans once or twice, maybe a human boy lived in the camp for a year or two before he moved on. It was as good as it gets between us and them, is what I’m trying to say.

But anyway, a new lord comes into the land. Maybe his father dies, maybe he kills some brother for it, who knows with a shem?

This new lord, he looks out over his lands, and he says “Oh-ho! Look at these elves, fishing on my water, hunting in my forest, never giving me any gold. I’ll have to punish them for that.”

And so, word gets around to the clan. The elves that make the new lord’s food, they talk to the traders at market, and they say “You’d better watch yourselves. The new lord’s out for blood.”

There’s more gossip, of course. City elves may not have a clan, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have good reason to hate shemlen, same as us. The king’s cook, he tells the clan that the new lord, he likes his hunting: stag and boar, even wyvern sometimes. The king’s seneschal, she tells the clan that the new lord spends too much on silks and pearls. The king’s chambermaid, well, she tells the clan that the new lord has a tiny prick, no bigger than her little finger.

When all this gossip reaches the clan’s Keeper, he gets himself an idea for how to put the new princeling in his place and keep his people safe.

So the king’s tax collector comes to the clan in the spring, and he says “Give us gold or be on your way; the lord of this country will tolerate no vagabonds on his land.”

The keeper says to the tax collector “We have no gold to give, but take instead our hunting-master and his hounds. He knows these woods well, and can lead your master to finer game than he has ever seen; his coursers are better than the king of Ferelden’s own dogs.”

Well the tax collector huffs and puffs a bit at this, but eventually word of the Keeper’s offer reaches the human lord, and he’s only too eager to recruit the hunting-master and his dogs. So the hunting-master shows up at the palace, and he does what his keeper asked. He brings the king grouse and goats, takes him to meet foam-chopped boars in battle.

But soon it’s summer, and the shem lord is weary of the hunt, and he longs for gold again. So his tax collector goes back to the clan and says “You will give the king gold. Now he maintains one of your people as an honored servant at his own expense, and you still dwell as vagabonds on his land.”

The Keeper sighs, and says “We have no gold, but early in the year, one of the children found a magnificent pearl while oyster-gathering. We will give this to your lord if he will leave us in peace.”

The pearl is as big as a fist, purple-pink and shining, when the lord receives it, he’s full of delight and shows it to every shem lady he knows, for he has plans to be married.

When autumn comes around, the shem lord is unhappy again. Neither hawk nor hound can pull his mind from thoughts of gold, and as for his pretty pearl, well, he’s unmarried still. And so he sends his tax collector to the clan.

Well, the Keeper’s had enough at this point, and he refuses to give any more of the clan’s treasure to an ungrateful lord, so, instead he says “Take me with you to meet your lord, and we will see what may be done.”

And so the tax collector brings the Keeper to the human lord.

“Will you pay me what I am rightfully due?” asks the lord.  
The Keeper sighs at this, and says, “We have given you our own hunting-master to serve you. We have given you a pearl of great worth. We have lived here for longer than you have been alive, and have never made war upon you. We trade peacefully with your villages, and bring in crafts and goods from the far dwarf clans. Why should we give you more?”  
“You are vagabonds,” says the human lord. “You dwell on my land without leave. If you want to be treated like subjects, you can come into the city and live with your people there, but so long as you live in the woods, you should be glad that I’m letting you keep your lives.”

And so the Keeper sighs, and says to the man “I have one more thing that I can give you, but we must discuss it privately, and you must swear that once this gift is given, you will leave our people to hunt and fish in peace, as we have always done.”

The lord agrees to this, and sends his court away, sends away his servants, even sends away his guard. When only he and the Keeper remain in the great wooden hall, the human says “What will you give me for your people’s freedom, elf?”

“It’s common knowledge,” says the Keeper, “that you’ve been looking for a wife, but none will have you, for all your finery and your great hall. And it’s common knowledge that this is because you have a tiny prick, no bigger than a child’s little finger.”

Well, the lord huffs and puffs at that, but for all his anger he cannot deny the truth of what the Keeper says.

“Here’s what I propose,” says the Keeper, keeping a straight face. “If you leave my people be, I’ll work some elf-magic on you, and I’ll give you a dick as big as you please. Then you’ll have no trouble finding some noble lady to be your wife.”

The lord agrees to this, and so the Keeper keeps his promise, gives the shem a new dick, even gives him balls to match.

“Now,” says the Keeper, “you must keep your promise. For as long as we are friends, this gift will bring you joy, but if you mistreat the elves under your rule, whether my people or the elves of your alienage, it will go ill with you.”

The lord agrees, and with his huge new dick he’s able to nab a new wife before the year is out. For many years, the keeper and the lord are friends, and the clan lives in peace. There are hard winters, to be sure, and rain that rots the hallas’ feet, but the humans do not press them so hard. Even the merchants are a little more honest when they come to trade.

But then one day, the lord finds his wife rolling around in bed with his pretty elven chambermaid, and this inflames him to rage.

He calls the Keeper to attend him in his hall. Once he and the Keeper are alone, he begins to scream and yell. “What good,” he asks, “is having a huge pecker, when my wife is sleeping with the chambermaid?”  
The Keeper shrugs at this. “I gave you a battering ram,” he says, “not the will to rule the keep.”  
“Your people,” says the rage-filled lord, “have lived in my graces too long! No more. You have a fortnight to depart. If my guards find an elf skulking along the coastline after that time, it will go hard on them.”

Well, the Keeper tries to calm the human with words, but nothing works. And so, he finally leaves. As he does, though, he says. “If we leave, we will take back the gifts we have given.”

The next morning, the shem-lord wakes up, and his seneschal is standing beside him, crying out that the great pearl is gone from his vaults. Soon after, the cook runs up, and says that the hunt-master is gone, along with all the game from the lord’s larder. And as he hears this news he grows angrier and angrier, vows that he will have his vengeance upon the elves.

But even humans are living beasts, and before he can attend to his blood and vengeance, he wants to piss.

When he drops his trousers to fill his chamber pot, well! He finds that the last of the Keeper’s gifts is also gone – no giant prick hangs between his thighs, nor even the little worm that the Keeper replaced. All that’s left is rough skin and coarse hair.

I don’t know what happened to that lord, and you shouldn’t listen to everything that people say.

But I do know that clan hasn’t had any trouble with humans since.


End file.
